


Magic Words

by starkraving



Category: Justice League - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, and also superhero boy scout tag teams, and had Clark adopt Billy, because i am a sucker for adoptive family fluff, i did the obvious, the family that capes together stays together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 16:12:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9131800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkraving/pseuds/starkraving
Summary: So Superman finds out Billy Batson is a homeless super-powered pre-teen and, you know, panics a little. Clark also somehow adopts the kid. It was an accident. He didn’t mean to! All the paperwork just filled itself out over six months of prep-time and vetting. Total accident. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Billy doesn’t mind.





	

“Are you sure about this, Clark?”

“Well, I better be, because the paperwork already went through and he’s literally moving his things into the spare bedroom and there is no turning back.”

“Why are you even calling me then?”

“I don’t know. I’m panicking and I call people when I panic.”

“Was I you first call?”

“No, I called my mom first. She has experience in adopting super-powered children. And also panicking.”

“Fair.”

“Just tell me it’s not a bad idea, Diana.”

He can feel her smiling through the ether of wireless transmission. “It’s not a bad idea. It’s terribly noble and decent of you and pretty much precisely the kind of thing I expect from you. I just think there are some logistics you’re going to have to get used to. That’s normal. If you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, remind yourself it’s normal. Remind yourself no parent knows what they are doing. Also, remind yourself you’re Superman.”

“Superman doesn’t know jack about algebra.”

“He doesn’t?”

“No. He does. I mean – _I_ do. I just don’t know how to teach it. How do you tell someone how to do algebra? I do algebra in my head. Should I hire a tutor? Do you think Barbra would help? Or Atom? Do you think Atom knows how to teach algebra?”

Laughter.

“Diana. I’m serious.”

“I know you are. That’s why I’m laughing. You’ll be fine. Stop worrying about algebra. Get everything moved in and maybe order a pizza or something. Okay?”

“Okay.”

In the spare bedroom, Billy obliviously continues decorating his new digs.

Billy doesn’t have super hearing. Captain Marvel does. Shazam does. His alter-ego infused with the power of the gods and personified by a dude with lightning chained wild around him – that guy has some super hearing. But Billy Batson, thirteen years old, currently jumping up and down on his new twin bed in order to slap glow-in-the-dark stars to the ceiling – that guy doesn’t hear the conversation in the other room. This is partially because he’s got Youtube running Let’s Play videos on his smartphone. The one Clark bought him this morning. The one with phone numbers for Diana, three of the Robins, Cyborg,  Zatanna, and the Kents on it.

Billy slaps another star to the high ceiling and lets himself drop flat on his back, spread eagle in the middle of the bootleg Batman comforter he got from Tim Drake. There is also a Batman baseball cap, a Batman T-shirt, and a ‘Gotham Rocks’ coffee mug. From the way Clark eyes the lot of it – a feud has begun. Billy cannot describe with all the words of Solomon’s Wisdom or otherwise the way his chest hurts from happiness, incandescent as the lightening that possesses him in transformation. Limitless and golden.

“Hey, Billy?” Clark knocks softly on the door to his bedroom. “I’m gonna order pizza. Does that sound good?”

“Yeah! That sounds _great_.”

“Meat lovers no anchovies, right?”

“Whatever you want!”

“Stuffed crust?”

“Yes!”

“Are you bouncing on the mattress?”

He stops. “No.”

Later, eating pizza on the couch and watching TV, Billy can tell Clark is listening to something that he can’t hear. He’s got his head cocked toward something, eyes on the window. There’s always something vaguely bizarre about seeing Clark in sweats and a T-shirt – mostly because it’s not his uniform. The Clark Kent journalist uniform or the Superman uniform. Also, when he doesn’t comb his hair it really starts to get away from him. It’s less jarring now. It’s being months of crashing at Clark’s place. He should be used to seeing Superman in sweats now that it’s official and this is home. But, no, it’s still weird.

“If people need help, you should go.”

“No. It’s under control. I’m just keeping an ear out.”

“Do you always keep an ear out?”

“To a degree. But not always. I would go crazy if I did that.”

“People think you can hear everything all over the world all the time.”

“Well, that’s silly. And even if I could hear everything and make sense of it in a useful way, I don’t think I would want to. I can’t be in two places at once, much less thousands of places.” He shrugs. “There’s a limit to what I can do.”

“What made you decide to be Superman?”

“I kept hearing too many people that needed help. I was raised with the understanding that helping others when I can is my responsibility as a moral being.” He blinks. “Sorry, that was kind of scripted. I get asked that a lot. But it’s true. I just couldn’t pretend I didn’t hear people.”

“You started pretty young didn’t you?”

“I was an adult.”

“You started… six years ago. You’re twenty-six now.” Clark looks flustered at Billy’s glee. “You weren’t old enough to drink!”

“ _Don’t_ share that with anyone in the League. I’ve managed to keep my age under wraps for the most part and some of them… tried to take me to bars when I was first starting out. They don’t need to know.” Billy cannot hide his delight with this information. Clark doesn’t seem to notice though. He peers at him. “You know, just because the Wizard gave you your powers doesn’t necessarily mean you have to use them. It’s still your choice, Billy. You don’t have a responsibility to do more than you’re ready for.”

“I’m okay. I just help when I can.” Billy takes an Olympian sized bite of pizza and through a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni, asks, “Do the other Leaguers know Superman is Clark Kent?”

“Not many. Batman and the Robins. Diana. Hal Jordan. You. A few others.”

“Why Hal?”

“He and I worked together when I was first starting out.” Clark picks up another slice and folds it, carefully spooling a bit of stringy cheese back on top. “It’s a funny story, but the short version is one of Hal’s Lantern buddies accidentally but not so accidentally hired Lobo to attack me.”

Billy decides to ignore the terrifying implications of Lobo attacking anyone, Superman or not. “How do you _accidentally_ hire the scariest mercenary in the galaxy?”

“You hire him to pick a fight with Superman so you can arrest him after Superman beats him up and throws him into orbit.”

“That… sounds really sketchy.”

“The Lantern Corps is a large intergalactic law enforcement body and… some of them are really sketchy. Yeah.” He pauses, then amends a little. “But that’s why Hal stepped in. He was new to the beat as a Green Lantern and some of his predecessors in this sector were real assholes.” Clark hesitates yet again, as if not sure he should be calling people ‘assholes’ in front of his new ward, but probably remembers that Billy literally called Black Adam ‘a mutant John Cena looking motherfucker’ during their fight, and dismisses the impulse. “Its fine, I threatened to come up there with my laser eyes and talk to the Oa. It’s _weird_. Suddenly we have three human Lanterns in our sector."

“You know, that boy scout rep seems inaccurate.”

“It is. I got kicked out of my troop.”

“Oh my _god_.”

He looks concerned all of a sudden. “Don’t tell anyone that either.”

 

* * *

 

So Superman has a weird rapport with Harley Quinn and Billy isn’t 100% sure what to make of it. It’s probably tied to the weird rapport he has with Batman and the Robins. Actually, thinking about it now, Billy thinks that Superman has a weird rapport with a lot of people both villainous and otherwise. It’s probably because he does this thing where he just talks to people like they’re not trying to kill him, even when they _are_ trying to kill him and something about him being weirdly friendly has a stopping effect on the momentum of… more fights than you’d expect.

He told Poison Ivy he thought her plants were kind of cool just before she attacked and she ended up giving him tips on how to plant tulips properly. It was strange. Gotham is always strange though. Superman visits a lot, but doesn’t really do much crime fighting as he does loitering around rooftops to bother passing Robins or part-time villains. The latter is what he’s doing presently.

“Ivy says you haven’t been back in a while.”

“Yeeeeah, I’ve been out. I can do that. I’m an adult, remember?”

“I know that. I’m just saying. You guys okay?”

“You’re a big blue busybody, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told. Joker’s out of Arkham again.”

Supes has on his grumpy brother voice. This is different than his disapproving dad voice, which can come off just a little condescending (usually because he’s talking to irritating adults and condescending is what he’s going for) while the big brother voice is just him being genuinely worried. Harley Quinn is sitting on the edge of an eight story building, sticking her tongue out at the both of them. Her hair, stuck up in pig tails, seems freshly dip-dyed. She’s wearing a harlequin outfit.

“I’m just workin’ some stuff out, Supes. Scout’s honor.”

“You’re not going back to him are you?”

Harley ignores his question and peers past him. “Hey, is that Shazam or whatever?”

“Yes, that’s Captain Marvel.”

“Oh. I thought his name was Shazam.”

“Well, technically it _is_ , but the newspapers called him Captain Marvel but he’s Shazam online. There’s one block of people on the east coast who call him Mr. Terrific. It’s confusing.” He must feel Billy gesturing. “He’s fine with both though.”

“I like his cape-hood thing.” She raises her voice to bellow at him. “HEY, SHAZZY! I LIKE YOUR CAPE-HOOD THING! ITS COOL LOOKING! ALSO THE LIGHTNING AND SHIT! YOU’RE NEAT!”

Billy who is Shazam presently, gives her a thumbs up from where he’s hovering about two stories up and away.

Harley says in a more normal tone, “Aw, hey, Supes, your friend is cute.”

“ _Don’t_.”

Billy, cups his hands around his mouth and shouts, “I’m not available for the next five years at least!” Clark’s head jerks slightly and Billy can feel him glaring.  “I’ve got a whole five-year-plan thing! No dating! Sorry!”

“Anyway,” Clark says loudly, drifting slightly leftward to block Harley’s view of him. “I just wanted to stop by and check in on you. Ivy tried to throw one of her man-eater vines at me so she’s pretty upset about the whole thing.”

“Aw, she threw a big bad plant at you?”

“Yeah. She only does that when she’s arguing with you.”

Harley plops her chin in her hands, lower lip jutting. “She shouldn’t do that. She likes ya, boy scout, honestly. She’s just bad at expressing emotions when it comes to guys is all. You know, unless the emotion is, like, hatred or murderousness.”

“Do you want me to go find him and put him back in Arkham for you?”

“No, no. Let Bats handle it. He already swung around to talk to me, you know.”

“That’s good.”

“You’re both saps.”

“I’ll bring you some tulips in spring. Ivy gave me planting tips.”

“See you then.”

Billy waits until they hit about Mach 3 over the ocean before slowing down enough to ask. “You remind me of Wonder Woman when you just jet around talking to people. Or Flash, honestly.”

Clark kind of floats sideways, lilting to the left. “Wonder Woman is largely responsible for the better part of my people skills.”

“You didn’t have people skills?”

“I did, she just taught me how to make the most of them. Also, Batman solves quite a lot of his problems by simply talking to people. He just doesn’t broadcast that because it ruins the mystique.”

“Yeah but Batman is like ‘rar I am the night’!”

“As opposed to…?”

“Hi, I’m Steve and I’m here to help?”

Clark chuckled. “Well, you’re not wrong. Now did you want to do a pass over Australia or what?”

“Kangaroos!”

“You’re so weird.”

“Harley Quinn likes my cape and I get to see kangaroos. Nothing can ruin this night!”

 

* * *

 

“So tell me about visiting alternate universes.”

Clark hesitates, arm cocks in the motion of throwing the baseball hooked in his fingers. He throws the ball. It screams through the air at incalculable speeds. Billy, Shazam, snaps through a stretch of nimbus cloud at Mach 2, smearing it in a white arc across the sky and catches the ball in the palm of his hand with a sound like a thunder clap. A ring of electricity leaps excitedly around his wrist. He twists, hovering aloft and looking down 10,000 feet into the mountains stretched green below, the landscape like the rucked up folds in a great blanket. Billy grins and dives back down, swooping to hover about fifty meters out from where Superman’s also hovering.

“So? What was it like? Batman said everything was flipped in one verse.”

“It was…” Clark’s eyes flicker, dimming somehow internally. The part of Billy that is more Shazam than a thirteen-year-old boy thinks he’s considering a lie… then decides against it. “Look, it was not great honestly. Avoid multi-verses.”

Shazam bounces the ball in his palm, frowning. “Did you ever see me in that universe?”

“That was before I knew you as Shazam in this universe. So if I did see you, I don’t remember.”

“What was bad about the multi-verse? You guys won didn’t you?”

Clark’s expression softens into a grin, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yes, we did but… it’s weird sometimes, seeing what could be.”

Billy hesitates, then lobs the ball back toward Clark. “Like what?”

“Most of the men and women I know as enemies were allies in that verse.” He catches the ball and tosses it back at regular human velocity. “It was… strange seeing possibilities in people realized.”

“Like Lex Luthor?”

Clark doesn’t quite grimace, but almost. “Yes. Like Luthor.”

A thought occurs to Billy. It’s a Shazam thought, a Wisdom of Solomon thought. He can always tell when it’s a Shazam thought influenced by something bigger than himself because the strangeness of the thought is strong enough, alien enough, that the rest of him sits up and takes note of it. Like a strange animal leapt suddenly into a clearing.

Shazam says, “Did you _like_ Luthor in that world?”

“Sure.” Clark doesn’t assign any ill-intent to his tone. “He was interesting. He… reminded me a little of Batman, but more sarcastic.”

“Is that possible?”

Clark, Superman, laughs hard enough his eyes close and he lifts one hand toward his mouth. “Just barely.”

“Was that the worst thing about the multi-verse?” Clark stops laughing when Billy asks this but he senses he’s okay to push forward even when Clark’s eyes dim again. “I mean, just seeing good things that aren’t good in this world?” Billy lets himself tip sideway, rotating until he’s floating upside-down and his cape falls up. “Or is it worse seeing things that are bad and so they make you think of how bad things could be if we just let them? Like, possibility of evil in all of us and stuff.”

“Both are frustrating, but thinking about the mirror-verse doesn’t bother me as much as it used when I was younger.”

“Because possibilities aren’t realities?”

Clark smirks. “ _Tech_ nically they are…”

Billy rolls his eyes. “One universe at a time they aren’t. We’re only responsible for the realities we live in. If you get caught up in the sum total of all universes and the importance of individual choice, then reality vanishes and you go existentially bonkers. It’s the quantum equivalent of, like, minding your own beeswax whenever possible.”

Clark folds his arm, head tilted, grinning. “It’s weird talking to you when you’re Shazam sometimes.”

Shazam shrugs. “I know. I say weird freakin’ stuff but it’s, like, deep. Kinda.” Billy rights himself and winds up for a fastball. “GO LONG SUPES!”

The boom of the sound barrier breaking thunders through the mountains.

 

* * *

 

So most people haven’t seen Superman really hurt. Sure, it happens. There’s moments where things seem bad, where a building drops on him or he gets cratered into the ground or gets engulfed in an unstoppable ball of gasoline and flame. Superman by definition requires a truly momentous amount of force to truly harm him. It’s not impossible, harming him. In fact, strictly speaking, it’s not that hard. Lots of people have terrible tools and force readily available to weaponize against strange dudes from another planet. No, generally, hurting him is hard but not _that_ hard.

The hard part is hurting him enough to stop him before he annihilates you.

So when the bolt strikes Clark dead center, explodes against the red and gold crest of his dead house and incinerates it to the skin... When Clark screams, once, this loud terrible animal noise so loud the air claps with the force – or maybe it’s the thunder from the strike… It’s any of those things. But Billy knows this is different. Clark curls around the wound, his whole body doubling over and for a moment it seems like he might shake it off, might come back, the well of solar fire in his soul surging hot to undo the damage… but then he goes slack, then he gets heavy, gravity reaching up and pulling down...

And then he falls out of the sky.

“Superman!”

Clark plummets and it’s not like it is in movies when a body falls. He’s not still. The physics of gravity and aeronautics seize his limp body until he’s spinning end over end and falling so fucking fast. But Shazam has the speed of Mercury. He’s lightning. He’s got the power of the gods on his side and surely that’s enough power to fight back and he cracks across the sky, zig-zagging a crimson path arced with ozone. Lightning strikes in his wake, igniting the skies and for snapshots the world lights up bone white so the shapes of the beasts infesting the air take horrific shape in the light.

“Shazam! Get back in formation!” Batman. Calm, but loud through the comm-link.

He comes up fast. “But – Superman!”

“He’ll be fine. The fall won’t kill him, but these monsters will if you bring them to him.” Shazam hovers, torn between the tactical correctness of the statement and the inconsolable urge to go to Clark. “We need your magic to combat them. You can help him by fighting.” Then, when Billy still hangs there, frozen, he says, “Shazam, I need you move. _Now_. Call down the lightning. You have to –”

The skies split open on his command.

 

* * *

 

“It’s his Achilles Heel.”

Billy, still in his warrior form, looks up from the middle distance into which he’s been intently staring.

Wonder Woman takes a seat next to him, her armor still battle-charred, her skin darkened with smoke. She smells like battle. Sweat, soot, burnt hair, and blood. She doesn’t seem bothered by it, but she’s 5000 years old. It’s in her nature to carry the weight of violence better than most. She shoulders it with more grace than any of them he’s noticed. Of all of them, her warrior’s spirit is probably the purest. He sees something archetypical in her features. Legendary. But maybe it’s just the gods looking though him.

“Magic,” she says, folding her hands on her knees. She’s sitting back, knees slightly spread, feet flat, comfortable. “Kal’s good with everything but magic… and sometimes electricity, depending on whether it gets the drop on him or not. That doesn’t make much sense to me, but lightening is a strange force. It carries ethers, if that makes sense.”

Shazam wipes his face, grateful for the hood on his cape. “It does, but I’m not sure why.”

“You’re a being attuned with lightning. Can you deny it holds power beyond the quantifiable?”

He inspects the thin chain of electricity that runs a faint golden circuit around his fingers still, disturbing his hair and cloak in a way that’s less cool when he’s just sitting around. “I figured my lightning was magic lightning and then there was regular lightning and they didn’t have anything to do with one another.”

“A reasonable assumption.”

“Is Clar – I mean, is Kal gonna be okay?”

“He’ll recover. He always does. Apollo loves him even if no other gods do. He walks under the protection of the sun and legend. Both give him strength.”

“Does… Apollo actually…?”

“No, I was being poetic.” Diana inspects her nails with a serene self-satisfaction. “Apollo is very annoyed with Kal most of the time and complains of him, but can do nothing about it because Kal kicked him in the face once and humiliated him greatly. I loved it. Kal is one of my favorite people for that.”

Shazam snorts. “I feel like Apollo is a big jerk. Am I right? I _feel_ like I’m right.”

“Indeed. He’s a god… but also a petty little deity.”

Diana sits close enough that the smell of battle has become the only scent in the air. Shazam feels it’s a familiar smell, but he isn’t sure why. He’s never been in a battle that bad before, never acclimated to the scent of death so he’s not sure how, sitting here, the memory of the carnage does not well over in him. Consume him. Perhaps it will when he goes back to being Billy Batson. He scrubs his face again and stares at the door the medical bay, hearing the burble of other JLA members, feeling like he should offer to help with clean up but unable to remove himself from the waiting area.

Diana pulls her hair out of its ponytail and runs her nails through the thick waves, kinked where the band compressed its volume.

“You did well out there, Shazam. Superman would be proud. I am certainly impressed with you.”

“How come Superman’s so vulnerable to magic? He’s worse off than Batman with it sometimes.”

“Batman is human. He has natural defenses built in by that virtue alone and beyond that, he’s a student of the paranormal arts. Kal has none of these immunities or teachings. What powers come against him, they afflicted him three fold.” She gives Billy a small smile, warm and reassuring. “He is stronger that most and survives it better, but it afflicts him.”

“How about you?”

“I am a being _of_ magic. Like you, it takes great and ancient powers to disturb our natural constitution.”

“Heh. I like that. ‘Disturb our natural constitution’. Like something out of a video game.”

Diana chuckles. “Whoops. Am I getting poetic again? Kara tells me I do that when I get distracted.”

“Nah, I like it. It’s… I dunno. Familiar a little. I like it.”

“Are you worried about Superman?”

“I… you know it’s weird. I am, but I’m not. Like, I understand he’s at risk, but I also 100% believe he’s going to be just fine. But I’m also terrified he won’t be. I don’t know. It’s two things running parallel inside me right now. I’m…like… kind of used to that feeling cuz of, you know, how this magic works or whatever but I always feel a bit… multiple. You know?”

“You are two things in one. Literally. That’s always difficult.”

“I should go help everyone else. I know Supes is gonna be fine but I… want to stay.”

Diana considers him. “The warrior Shazam is said to have the Courage of Achilles. Yes?”

“Yeah. That’s the line I was sold anyway.”

“Well courage is not an absence of fear. If it was, it would be the Overwhelming and Unbearable Hubris of Achilles and not very useful. Courage is hope in the face of fear so what you describe sounds less like the division of two beings in a singular soul and more like your standard run of the mill bravery I’m afraid. You’re very brave, Achilles or no. I know what Kal means to you.”

Billy sighs and stands up. “Okay. Where do they need me out there?”

Diana smiles and stands. “Metropolis was hit pretty hard by that last wave. I think the people would be comforted by your presence.”

“Then I guess I’m heading home.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Stop fretting.”

“I can fret! I’m allowed to fret! Look, I made chicken noodle soup and everything!”

“Well, you sound so pleased about it, I guess it won’t change your mind if I point out my healing factor is very good and I’ve been fully recovered for days? You know, because I’m Superman.”

“Chicken soup! It’s good for the soul!”

“Stop shouting. Is that Wisdom of Solomon or Campbell’s soup marketing?”

“Both?”

Clark eats the soup and nibbles on the buttered toast. He’s got bedhead. “You know I mostly run off sunlight, right?”

Billy sits cross-legged on the foot of Clark’s bed. “Martha says this is the best thing. I don’t argue with moms.”

“Fair.”

“Does Lois tell you your room is kind of ugly? All these quilts are super hokey.”

“Leave my quilts alone.”

“Hokey.”

“If you haven’t figured out I’m hokey by now, then the Wizard might have oversold the Wisdom thing.”

“Look,” Billy says, “you’re my only big brother now so you can’t go around getting struck by magical lightning and chewed on by demons. I just got my room all decorated right. I’m enjoying have a room that I have decorated. I have posters on the walls now. I like a teenager from the movies or something. It’s nice. Don’t mess it up for me.”

Clark grins. “I’ll try.”

“You’ve got responsibilities now.”

“Weird, I feel like I had those before…”

“Don’t deflect. You’re a real adult now responsible for raising an impressionable kid. Gotta step it up.”

Clark nods, agreeing… then speed-grabs Billy by the arm and pulls him into a massive bear hug. “Working on it.”

Happiness, Billy knows, is not a thing you can reach and hold on it. It comes in a wave and subsides. But for now, in this time, and this moment, screaming and wrestling his way out of Clark’s arms, Billy thinks that he might be able to ride this wave for a good long while. The part of him that is Shazam… agrees.

 

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank for reading! Comments and feedback are the best fuel for the imagination. :)


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